I like to assemble compilations of my drawings. Seeing them all together at once like this shows progress over the last nine drawings. Nine more drawings means already a month's worth of drawings are now on the Drawing a Day blog.
When you set yourself the challenge to post work daily, you begin to see a body of work growing, and it happens quite fast. (The work gets automatically archived at the same time - bonus!) It's part of the beauty of blogging.
Without this kind of commitment, I tend to make drawings, put them away in a drawer and forget about them. It's useful to have the opportunity to review work on a continuous basis on a blog. It's a bit like having one huge, luxury studio where you can see all your work laid out in front of you, pick out the interesting stuff to move forward and discard the not-so-good.

The luxury of spending a whole day in my notebook! Today I reworked some ideas, collaged, found some fun things in a Maplins catalogue (the weird black hairy beasts, in the centre of the picture above) and tried out some new ideas. 

Thomas Nozkowwski
Untitlted (9-24) 2014.
Oil on linen on panel 56cm x 71cm
​Pace Gallery

For years Thomas Nozkowski has been turning out a body of work which is inspirational in its sheer craziness. Every work is inventive, thinks on its feet, and presents a unique take on the artist's response to the world.

Here are 10 of those favourite things which I have lying about, in no particular order. They are all rich pickings for my drawings, so if you ever wondered where the ideas come from ...

1. My precious puffer fish with a dried sunflower stuck in his back

2. A piece of root run over by the Land Rover several times

My curiosity is piqued. I have been obsessed with stick insects since I was a child, but had no idea there existed leafy ones, too ... 
How did they get here? When? How did they end up looking like this (I suppose that's obvious from an evolutionary point)? What do they do all day? Do they think? Are they aware of their own mortality?
More detailsThe leaf insect Phyllium  Photo by Sandilya Theuerkauf, Wynaad. Wikipedia

A resumé of the last 9 drawings on the Drawing a Day blog.

There's something about autumn and bonfires ... it's a beautiful time of year. This morning began with one of those foggy, silent dawns before the sun broke through and turned it into a classic, mellow Scottish autumn day. For some reason I always find this an exciting and stimulating time when I want to get on with work.

In May 2013 I began the 'Daily Doodles' which I posted on Facebook. I drew every day but each drawing in the series took about 2 days to complete. I have always been interested in producing a finished, if small or rather sketchy, drawing every day and I recently revived the habit of publishing them in the Drawing a Day blog here on my website and on Instagram. Today's is no.17, and I thought it would be interesting to compare the no.17s: left, Daily Doodles 17 from 2013, and right, today's.

We've been driving from Lix Toll to Fife and then back again over the last couple of days. I really like to draw in cars (I wasn't driving, needless to say). My work generally requires intense control, and I find it exciting to have that control taken away from me by the bumps and jolts of the motion of travel - it roughs it up a bit. Just for fun I drew two of the cars we were following, then a bit of line-following-line work, enjoying the quivery line. It reminds me of the Roobarb and Custard cartoons of the mid '70s! (Dates me rather ...)

Yesterday evening we had langoustines bought at Loch Fyne, which is a 90 minute drive from us. It was for celebration food. They came with barnacles attached!

Today I started my piece for the Drawing a Day blog. It started off on an upright orientation until I realised what I was doing, and turned it sideways. Langoustines with barnacles on my cold-infested brain. Keep taking the cough mixture!

Zinescrib HEW 2015

Here’s a really unlikely-looking example of the way influences pervade the work that I make today. I have been absorbed in scribbling on magazine pages, a liberating way to kick-start the imagination. All the time I have been making them I am aware that I am calling upon something that I learnt in the early 1980’s, when I was at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen.

Antoni Clavé, 1913 - 2005. Oil on canvas

When I am making drawings like this one on the Drawing a Day blog, a story usually starts unfolding as I work which feeds back into the drawing. Today's: This is a cactussy-type plant. It rarely flowers, maybe once in 50 years, and when it does it sheds all its needles.

Scribbling on magazines is such a great way to relax and get a flow back into work, especially on those days when motivation takes the day off. 

A resumé of the first 9 on the Drawing a Day blog.